


What's in a name?

by Mycroffed



Category: Jessica Jones (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Kilgrave's childhood, Well - Freeform, or some of my headcanons about it anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-17
Updated: 2015-12-17
Packaged: 2018-05-07 05:56:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5445728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mycroffed/pseuds/Mycroffed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kilgrave wasn't always called Kilgrave. But where did the name actually come from? Did he have other names?</p>
            </blockquote>





	What's in a name?

**Author's Note:**

> Because I have no life and am getting way too deep in the Kilgrave mindset. So here's some baby Kilgrave.
> 
> Thanks for reading, kudo'ing and commenting!

_Kilgrave_.

It hadn't always been his name. He had adopted it when he was eighteen, if he remembered correctly. But before that, he was nobody. He wasn't Kevin Thompson anymore, since that boy had died, in a way, but he wasn't Kilgrave, not yet. It took him a long time for him to finally find his place in the world.

_Kev_.

When he was younger - younger being three or four years old - his parents used to call him Kev. He quickly started to hate that name, since the two of them only used it when he was  being rather uncooperative. Even as a kid, he could have his _moods,_ when he would refuse to do what his parents wanted him to do. He didn't realize that they were trying to help him, not yet anyway. That realization only came later.

He used to hate his parents, accused them of not caring about him, but now that he looked back on it, he could see that they were only doing this in an attempt to make his life better, to make it more bearable. They knew what it was like to live with his disease, his handicap. Or at least they claimed they did.

_Kevin._ _  
_

When he became older, when he was about seven year old, his parents completely dropped 'Kev'. He couldn't be happier about that. That name was always attached to pain, to spinal injections. Not that Kevin wasn't, but Kev more than that.

Then of course the day came. The day his parents left him. The day he got his powers and he ordered them to leave him. He survived a couple of days on his own - until the food they had in the fridge was gone. The neighbours had started to suspect something was _off_ when they stopped seeing Mr. and Mrs. Thompson going to work, while there was still clearly movement inside the place. Kevin spent his days watching tv and eating the cookies and snacks he found in the kitchen.

But ten year old Kevin didn't realise that food could spoil, could turn back, so even when some of the things he ate had furry fuzzy patches on them, he still ate them, since he didn't know any better. The next morning, he woke up with a massive headache, stomachache and the fungus had nestled in his longs. 

He managed to leave the house, grasping his neck, trying to breathe and one of the neighbours spotted him. She immediately called an ambulance while she took care of the young boy. He was still dressed in the hospital-like gowns his parents had bought for him and it wasn't like he had any hair anywhere on his body. She had never seen him before, so in an attempt to calm him down, to stop his panicked breathing, she gently placed a hand on his shoulder.

The breathing only turned more panicked as he flinched away from the neighbour. He had always associated touch with pain, with something bad. Tears automatically started to run down his cheeks as he shook his head in protest. _Don't touch me, don't give me another spinal injection,_ please _don't hurt me._

The neighbour immediately let go of him, not knowing what to do with this, with this mess that was supposed to be a human being. It wasn't as if the breathing was getting any better and the clawing at his neck was only getting worse, to the point that he scratched himself so badly that he started to bleed. That was when she felt like she _had_ to intervene again, grabbing his wrists and pulling them away from his neck.

Kevin looked at her in complete and utter betrayal before another panic attack hit him. He screamed as loud as he could, trashing around and trying to get away. He could've died right there and then - maybe that had been better in retrospect - but the ambulance arrived just in time.

The paramedics came running with a supply of oxygen for the young boy. But he was still in the middle of his panic attack when they arrived, so he wouldn't let anyone close to him at all. He kept trashing, kept keeping everybody away, until his headache was getting worse and worse. It was a lack of oxygen that eventually caused him to faint, giving the man finally the opportunity to sedate him and bring him to the hospital.

_Young master Thompson._

The neighbour could give the paramedics a last name, since she knew that he was the son of their neighbours, but she had no idea what his first name was. So John it was. Or simply _young master._ _  
_

Waking up in the hospital bed was disorienting, to say the least. The first thing he noticed was the needle in his arm and he was completely convinced that it was one of his parents' tricks, that this was just a new way to get him to cooperate. He tried to get the needle out of his arm, causing himself to bleed again.

Nurses came rushing in, pulling out other needles, sedative, trying to get the young man calmed down again. They couldn't let him hurt himself even more. Soon, Kevin was sleeping once more.

After that incident, they kept him asleep most of the time, until the Doctor in charge declared him healed again. He slowly opened his eyes, all disoriented and confused. He curled up on the bed, glaring at everybody around him. Someone came to get him to an orphanage, so a place where he would be taken care of. Kevin wanted to scream, wanted to tell everybody to just piss off and leave him alone.

But of course they didn't. Kevin was taken to a place which was festered with other kids. He became a quiet kid, not speaking to anyone, not even when they asked him questions. That's when he earned the name _weirdo_.

_Weirdo._ _  
_

He didn't stay at the first orphanage for long. The other kids picked on him more than anyone else, since he wouldn't go tell their 'parents'. As soon as he had learned how to cook, how to take care of himself, he was gone. By then, he was thirteen.

He lived rough for the next five years until he was old enough to legally get a full-time job. He hadn't really talked a lot, he preferred staying quiet over getting stupid answers in reply. If people asked for his name, he told them it was _weirdo._ People accepted him.

His first job lasted for about a week. It was mindless work and he was bored after the first day. He had earned enough money to get food to survive a month after a week and that was when he was out. He needed another job, one that wouldn't make him braindead.

"Oi, Weirdo!"

He was walking down the street, going to his next job interview - it was supposed to be something interesting this time - when someone called out for him. He turned around and recognised the group of young men as people from the orphanage.

"Look who it is, Mr. Weirdo who doesn't have a name!" One of them laughed. "Do you still refuse to talk? Or have you grown up by then?" He smirked as he pushed against Kevin's shoulder. "Come on, poohead. Can't you speak?"

"Shut up, Ethan." Kevin whispered, not loud enough for the other to hear it.  
"What was that? What did you say?" He other backed him into a wall. "Did you actually _say_ anything?" They were trying to scare him off, to get him to run off to his mommy - oh wait, he didn't have one anymore.

"Shut up!" He yelled loudly, in a burst of anger. It had been the first time he had actually snapped. It was hard sometimes, living on the street, never knowing when he would get his next job. But he had never suspected that the others would actually _shut up_.

Ethan and his friends were standing there, trying to talk, but not allowed because Kevin had said so. At first, the young man was waiting for them to talk back, waiting for some snarky comment about what a poohead he was. When they didn't, he started to realise what had happened. He started to see the different times that this had happened before. And he decided to experiment.

"Get onto the roof. All of you!"

His eyes widened in surprised as the group of men actually climbed onto the roof of the building next to them. He finally grasped that he was special, that he had gone through everything with his parents for a reason. He rang the bell of the house and when it was opened, he ordered the owners to let him in and forget he was ever there. They did without protesting.

Once he had reached the roof as well, he spotted the group standing there, looking scared as all hell.

"Walk to the edge of the damn roof." He growled, his voice a bit raspy from barely speaking. "Walk to the edge and jump off."

It was Kevin who had walked down that street before they called out for him, but it was someone entirely else who stood on the roof. That man enjoyed the power he had discovered. He enjoyed watching them fall. He _enjoyed_ how the blood splattered on the ground beneath them. This was why he had such a shitty childhood, always controlled by everybody around him. Well now, he was the one in control. And he wasn't going to give it up anytime soon.

_Kilgrave._


End file.
